Letter(Let"ter) n. [From Let to permit.] One who lets or permits; one who lets anything for hire.

Letter(Let"ter), n. [From Let to hinder.] One who retards or hinders. [Archaic.]

Letter(Let"ter), n. [OE. lettre, F. lettre, OF. letre, fr. L. littera, litera, a letter; pl., an epistle, a writing,
literature, fr. linere, litum, to besmear, to spread or rub over; because one of the earliest modes of
writing was by graving the characters upon tablets smeared over or covered with wax. Pliny, xiii. 11.
See Liniment, and cf. Literal.]

1. A mark or character used as the representative of a sound, or of an articulation of the human organs
of speech; a first element of written language.

And a superscription also was written over him in letters of Greek, and Latin, and Hebrew.

Luke xxiii.
38.

2. A written or printed communication; a message expressed in intelligible characters on something adapted
to conveyance, as paper, parchment, etc.; an epistle.